Outage Management Services

The O I C Outage Team brings years of experience and a working knowledge to your contract development team. We will assess your business needs and recommend results-based contract criteria using proven alliance concepts. The contracts will contain performance measures that are aligned with targeted corporate objectives. Our services include recommendations for planning, execution and project controls, including reporting methodology. Customized contracts (i.e., Long-Term Service Agreements) can be developed and used as pilots, while assessing the viability of long-term alliance agreements.

RFP (Request for Proposal) Preparation

The O I C Outage Team provides support and assistance with the assessment of prospective contractors by applying alliance-based qualifications and capabilities criteria. We evaluate the proposal requirements and recommend items to ensure bid submittals are comprehensive, and alliance-compatible.

Pre-Bid Meetings with Prospective Alliance Contractors

The O I C Outage Team will introduce and explain the alliance-based contracting approach, concepts and methodology. We will serve as subject matter experts and consult with the parties on the alliance-based contracting approach and strategies.

The O I C Outage Team will consult with the parties to introduce alliance concepts into Long-Term Service Agreements or other “pilot” alliance-based contract evaluation model(s). We help develop the evaluation weighting criteria to ensure that it matches the client’s business model. We will recommend time-based evaluation criteria to reflect both long-term and short-term benefits. We will actively participate in the bid evaluation and analysis process to ensure that the contracting strategy is effective from the outset.

The O I C Outage Team provides real life examples and comprehensive explanations on how alliance contracts work. We will facilitate discussions, applying conventional Alliance-based concepts to client’s project(s).

The O I C Outage Team will provide a model of the outage’s life cycle, from Initiation through Closeout. We will explain in detail the fundamental steps required to successfully complete an outage. We will facilitate discussions and exercises around real-life outage challenges.

Outage Planning Overview – The Fundamentals (facilitated training)

The O I C Outage Team will detail all of the process elements associated with successfully planning an outage. We will provide a graphic model of the Outage Planning Overview process steps, and facilitate discussions and exercises around the client’s real-life planning challenges.

The O I C Outage Team works with you to examine your current Outage Management Process and make recommendations for improvement, based on industry standard best practice. The changes in process will be explained and fully deliberated, to achieve consensus from outage management, key stakeholders and outage service providers. The facilitation can be customized to include alliance contractors, corporate services, senior management, as well as plant-based people. This facilitation has the added value of promoting team alignment. The O I C Outage Team will provide a summary report to document the proceedings and follow-up items.

The O I C Outage Team facilitates workshops to bring alliance teams together and focus on establishing a personal connection and a solid foundation to a long-term business relationship. These sessions usually reveal a number of shared business goals and objectives. They establish a framework to serve the mutual needs of all parties. Through the use of some innovative and engaging activities, the teams are introduced to their new counter-parts and gain an understanding and appreciation for everyone’s roles and responsibilities. The O I C Outage Team’s facilitators provide a number of coaching and feedback techniques throughout the process. The O I C Outage Team will document the proceedings and provide a summary report.

Outage Planning - On-Track Sessions (facilitated meetings)

The O I C Outage Team helps your team to stay on track with the planning effort, ensuring that the established milestones are met and the planning is comprehensive. This facilitated service is customized to assess the planning process and its output against the established Outage Work Management standard process, and its expected deliverables. Our facilitation will come with coaching, planning expertise, and supportive recommendations, and will include all appropriate stakeholders. These sessions are focused on achieving the larger goals of your corporation, more specifically, successful outages! The O I C Team will document the findings and issue a summary report of the session.

Outage LTSA / Alliance Kick-Off Session (facilitated meetings)

The O I C Outage Team will facilitate your Outage LTSA / Alliance Kick-off Sessions just prior to the outage start date. These are sessions that are dedicated to introducing the outage partners to their contract counter-parts, and to review their expectations and deliverables. The outage management team will lead an outage overview discussion and take questions from other outage stakeholders. The overview will outline the goals and objectives of the outage. The communications plan will be emphasized, with a focus on Safety and Quality. Outage plans, roles and responsibilities, outage execution, project controls, analysis and reporting will be reviewed. This session is sometimes broken down into mini-sessions. For example, there may be a training session for OPL’s (Outage Project Leads), a strategy session for the outage leadership, and an all-hands overview session.

The O I C Outage Team will document the proceedings and issue a summary report.

The O I C Outage Team will assess the outage execution by conducting a series of non-intrusive, personal interviews with the outage team. These interviews will include targeted questions, appropriate for the particular role of the person(s) being interviewed. Team members interviewed will typically include a cross-section of roles from both the owner and contractor(s). The information gathered is categorized and summarized. The information is conveyed to the outage management team in an exit-meeting format, along with certain recommendations. The O I C Outage Team will supply a summary report, documenting the assessment proceedings and its findings.

Best Practices & Lessons Learned (facilitated workshops)

The O I C Outage Team will help your team to both determine certain processes, that should be adopted as “best practice” and document those items that could be considered “lessons learned”. Both the “best practices” and actions from the “lessons learned” items are incorporated into the plans for future such projects. These sessions typically involve key stakeholders from both the owner and the contractor(s). The format of these sessions typically follows the project “life cycle” model. This process evaluates each phase of the project, including Initiation, Planning, Execution & Control, and Close-out. The O I C Outage Team will supply a summary report, detailing the findings of the session.

Outage Team Tune-up in the “off-season”

The O I C Outage Team offers the opportunity for your team to improve itself in the “off-season”….taking the time when you have the time to examine the team’s areas for improvement and increased effectiveness. This includes a combination of personal development and professional training initiatives, and usually is conducted over a 10-hour time frame.

Aligning the local outage team with their corporate partners

The O I C Outage Team will facilitate a session bringing some of the “behind the scenes” people together with the outage management team. Often times, there are certain process hand-offs, approvals, service providers that affect critical outage functions. Typical sessions have included stakeholders and service providers from accounting, warehouse, supply chain, IT, and others. We recommend that this be done prior to each outage season, assuring alignment of the “larger team”. This session often includes a presence of senior management to provide context and inspiration.

The O I C Outage Team documents the proceedings along with any follow-up items.